Public Release: 21-May-2015 Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesPenn researchers show that mental 'map' and 'compass' are two separate systems
In a new study in mice, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that mental 'map' and 'compass' systems work independently. A cue that unambiguously provided both types of information allowed the mice to determine their location but not the direction they were facing.
National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 21-May-2015 Animal BehaviourLowly 'new girl' chimps form stronger female bonds
Low-ranking 'new girl' chimpanzees seek out other gal pals with similar status, finds a new study. The results are based on 38 years' worth of daily records for 53 adult females in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, where Jane Goodall first started studying chimpanzees in the 1960s. The researchers are still working out whether the low-ranking pairs are true buddies, friends of convenience, or merely acquaintances.
National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Jane Goodall Institute

Public Release: 21-May-2015 Advanced MaterialsMission possible: This device will self-destruct when heated
Where do electronics go when they die? Most devices are laid to eternal rest in landfills. But what if they just dissolved away, or broke down to their molecular components so that the material could be recycled? University of Illinois researchers have developed heat-triggered self-destructing electronic devices, a step toward greatly reducing electronic waste and boosting sustainability in device manufacturing. They also developed a radio-controlled trigger that could remotely activate self-destruction on demand.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 21-May-2015 Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesSymbiosis turns messy in 13-year cicadas
Bacteria that live in the guts of cicadas have split into many separate but interdependent species in a strange evolutionary phenomenon that leaves them reliant on a bloated genome, a new paper by CIFAR Associate Fellow John McCutcheon's lab (University of Montana) has found.
National Institutes of Health, M. J. Murdoch Charitable Trust, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 21-May-2015 SciencePartly human yeast show a common ancestor's lasting legacy
Despite a billion years of evolution separating humans from the baker's yeast in their refrigerators, hundreds of genes from an ancestor that the two species have in common live on nearly unchanged in them both, say biologists at The University of Texas at Austin. The team created thriving strains of genetically engineered yeast using human genes and found that certain groups of genes are surprisingly stable over evolutionary time.
Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas, National Institutes of Health, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, National Science Foundation, Welch Foundation

Public Release: 20-May-2015National designation for USF to turn research into commercial products, launch start-ups
The University of South Florida has been named an I-Corps Site by the National Science Foundation, becoming the second site in Florida and one of only three dozen institutions around the country to earn the prestigious designation. USF will receive nearly $300,000 to build, train, and mentor teams of USF faculty and students to become successful entrepreneurs and commercialize their ideas over the next three years.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 20-May-2015 American Journal of BotanyStudy reveals how eastern US forests came to be
Spring visitors to Great Smoky Mountains or the Blue Ridge Parkway will see ridges and valleys covered in flowering mountain laurels, rhododendrons, tulip poplars, dogwoods, black locusts and silverbell trees. A new study of nearly all the trees and shrubs in the southern Appalachians suggests that roughly half of the species can trace their relatives to thousands of miles away in Asia. Most of the rest likely arose within North America, the researchers say.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 20-May-2015Researchers help video gamers play in the cloud without guzzling gigabytes
Gamers might one day be able to enjoy the same graphics-intensive fast-action video games they play on their gaming consoles or personal computers from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets without guzzling gigabytes, thanks to a new tool developed by researchers at Duke University and Microsoft Research. Named 'Kahawai' after the Hawaiian word for stream, the tool delivers graphics and gameplay on par with conventional cloud-gaming, while using one sixth of the bandwidth.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 20-May-2015Scientists tackle mystery of thunderstorms that strike at night
From June 1 through July 15, NCAR researchers and their colleagues from across North America will fan out each evening across the Great Plains to study the mysterious phenomenon of nighttime thunderstorms.
National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 20-May-2015New era of astronomy as gravitational wave hunt begins
Australian scientists are in the hunt for the last missing piece of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, gravitational waves, as the Advanced LIGO Project in the United States comes online.
LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatories) aims to find gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space and time caused by the most violent events in the universe such as supernovae or collisions between black holes.
National Science Foundation, Australian Research Council, UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, Max Planck Society

Public Release: 20-May-2015 NatureNew class of swelling magnets have the potential to energize the world
A new class of magnets that expand their volume when placed in a magnetic field and generate negligible amounts of wasteful heat during energy harvesting, has been discovered. This transformative breakthrough has the potential to not only displace existing technologies but create altogether new applications due to the unusual combination of magnetic properties.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 20-May-2015 NatureCaltech astronomers observe a supernova colliding with its companion star
On May 3, 2014, Caltech astronomers working on a robotic observing system known as the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory discovered a Type Ia supernova -- supernova known as 'standardizable candles' because they allow astronomers to gauge cosmic distances -- located 300 million light-years away. The data collected offer unprecedented insight into the origin of this type of supernovae, and suggest the possibility that it actually comes in two distinct varieties.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 19-May-2015 Language Variation and ChangeThinking alike changes the conversation
As social creatures, we tend to mimic each other's posture, laughter, and other behaviors, including how we speak. Now a new study shows that people with similar views tend to more closely mirror, or align, each other's speech patterns. In addition, people who are better at compromising align more closely.
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 19-May-2015 Nature NanotechnologyNature inspires first artificial molecular pump
Using nature for inspiration, Northwestern University scientists are the first to develop an entirely artificial molecular pump, in which molecules pump other molecules. The machine mimics the pumping mechanism of proteins that move small molecules around living cells to metabolize and store energy from food. The pump draws its power from chemical reactions, driving molecules step-by-step from a low-energy state to a high-energy state. The pump one day might be used to power other molecular machines, such as artificial muscles.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 18-May-2015 Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesUniversity of Montana research finds evidence of non-adaptive evolution within cicadas
University of Montana Assistant Professor John McCutcheon has once again discovered something new about the complex and intriguing inner workings of the cicada insect.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences recently published his findings online. In a paper titled 'Genome expansion by lineage splitting and genome reduction in the cicada endosymbiont Hodgkinia,' McCutcheon and his team found that the nutritional symbionts living inside long-living cicadas have become a lot more complicated. And it's not necessarily a good thing for the insect.
National Science Foundation, NASA

Public Release: 18-May-2015UMD scientist to develop virtual 'CyberHeart' to test, improve implantable cardiac devices
A University of Maryland expert in the model-based testing of embedded software is working to accelerate the development of improved implantable medical devices used in the treatment of heart disease. W. Rance Cleaveland, a professor of computer science, is part of a multi-institutional team developing a 'CyberHeart' -- a sophisticated digital platform used for patient-specific testing of current devices like pacemakers, as well as prototyping the next generation of implantable cardiac devices now under development.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 18-May-2015 Nature Climate ChangeExposure of US population to extreme heat could quadruple by mid-century
US residents' exposure to extreme heat could increase four- to six-fold by mid-century, due to both a warming climate and a population that's growing especially fast in the hottest regions of the country, according to new research by NCAR scientists.
National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 18-May-2015 Psychological ScienceImagination beats practice in boosting visual search performance
Practice may not make perfect, but visualization might. New research shows that people who imagined a visual target before having to pick it out of a group of distracting items were faster at finding the target than those who did an actual practice run beforehand. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 18-May-2015Cyberheart research begins with virtual models, mathematics and NSF support
The NSF is supporting the early development of medical and cyber-physical systems that fuse software and hardware and go beyond today's pacemakers. Rochester Institute of Technology professor Elizabeth Cherry is on the multidisciplinary team, spanning seven universities and centers, developing the 'Cyberheart' platform for virtual, patient-specific human heart models and associated device therapies.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 18-May-2015 Advanced Optical MaterialsPenn researchers develop liquid-crystal-based compound lenses that work like insect eyes
Researchers have shown how liquid crystals can be employed to create compound lenses similar to those found in nature. Taking advantage of the geometry in which these liquid crystals like to arrange themselves, the researchers are able to grow compound lenses with controllable sizes.
National Science Foundation, US Department of Education, Simons Foundation

Public Release: 18-May-2015 Ecology LettersChronic illness causes less harm when carnivores cooperate
Gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park have given researchers the first scientific evidence from wild mammals that living in a group can lessen the impacts of a chronic disease. The research also is one of the first studies to measure the costs of infected non-human individuals of any species on members of their group.
US Geological Survey, National Park Service, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 18-May-2015 Nature Climate ChangeUS West's power grid must be prepared for impacts of climate change
Arizona State University researchers say in coming decades a changing climate will pose challenges to operations of power generation facilities, especially in the Western United States. They recommend what should be done to ensure reliable electricity supplies as the region gets hotter and drier. One suggestion: More use of renewable energy sources.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 18-May-2015 Nature GeoscienceStudy proposes common mechanism for shallow and deep earthquakes
A new study published online in Nature Geosciences by a research team led by University of California, Riverside geologists reports that a universal sliding mechanism operates for earthquakes of all depths -- from the deep ones all the way up to the crustal ones. The physics of the sliding is the self-lubrication of the earthquake fault by flow of a new material consisting of tiny new crystals, the study reports.
National Science Foundation

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